Plans to build a new 'super surgery' on the site of the former Tooks Bakery in Ipswich will no longer go ahead. 

Ipswich Borough Council has confirmed that plans for the new GP practice have been scrapped after what it described as a "significant" increase in costs meant the project is "no longer affordable". 

The council has said despite the setback there remains a commitment to find an affordable alternative site. 

The new site would've been built in north west IpswichThe new site would've been built in north-west Ipswich (Image: Ipswich Council/KLH Architects)

There will be a meeting next week with the Cardinal Medical Practice, which runs surgeries in Norwich Road and Chesterfield Road and is administered from the former Deben Road Surgery, to discuss a number of possible alternative plans. 

Plans for the new surgery at the Tooks Bakery site were first proposed by Ipswich Borough Council back in 2017.

The new surgery, which was expected to be built on the junction of Bury Road and Old Norwich Road on the edge of Ipswich for the Cardinal Medical Practice, was first proposed to support the provision of primary care locally, in a partnership involving the NHS and Ipswich Borough Council.

Work was due to have started earlier this year with a planned opening date in June 2025.

However, work did not get underway as concerns over rising costs started to emerge.

Chesterfield Drive surgery would have been replaced by the new centreChesterfield Drive Practice would have been replaced by the new centre (Image: Newsquest)

A planning application submitted for the new surgery is expected to be withdrawn and Ipswich Borough Council will consider new options for the use of the former Tooks Bakery site. 

A joint statement from the NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board and Ipswich Borough Council said: “The NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board and Ipswich Borough Council are deeply disappointed that the full relocation and new build plan at the Tooks site has now become unaffordable to the NHS and its partners, with costs having increased significantly over the past three years. 

“Despite this setback we remain determined to work in partnership to find an alternative, affordable solution that will deliver improved primary care facilities for the patients and practice team in north west Ipswich.”